Monday, June 8, 2015

WW Part 3 Ch 7, 8 & 10

Post classical; Medieval, middle or as Strayer calls it- the “3rd wave of civilization” was full of “Something New, Something Old, Something Blended” (307) which further transformed civilizations in culture, traditions, languages, politics and the settlement of new states thru Trade. The new ways of trade where by Land in the “Silk Roads”, by Sea in the “Indian Ocean Basin” and by “Sand Roads” thru the Sahara Desert. This new Era had many challenges in addition to environmental, language and cultural challenges to name a few; yet it was an Era that made a bigger impact on the urbanization of the empires, kingdoms and city-states. 
New were kingdoms rose, fell or changed their ways. “The kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, Songhay” were some new city-states that sustained themselves thru commerce. One major avenue of Eurasia commerce was the creation of the “Silk Roads” which were the mainstream pathways for “goods, ideas, technologies, and diseases” (319) all of which impacted each city-state in a different ways. City-States began to specialize in products in order to bring their product to market across the land, water and desert. One example is China, who became known for its’ silk and porcelain which was highly sought after by the wealthy and elite of other countries. Religion also played an important role along these roads with its sculptures, doctrines and teachings which made some peoples pick certain elements of other religions and adapt them as their own. One religion that became a big part of the 3rd wave was Islam. It had the “largest, most expansive, and most influential” impact on all of the countries. It was “viewed as a new civilization defined by its religion, the world of Islam came to encompass many other centers of civilizations… ““umbrella”” civilization that “came closer than any had ever some to uniting all mankind under it ideals”” (308) which makes us think what if things turned out different.
There were new “smaller civilizations …along the East African coast… engaged in the commercial life of the Indian Ocean Basin” (307) creating opportunities for peoples to sell, buy, travel and potentially conquer other lands. The blending of different civilizations made the 3rd wave a “mini-globalization” (310) which had major effect in the world even to this day. Ideas, technologies and religion from China were blended into Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese cultures. Korea and Vietnam were the ones that were most influenced by China thus the isolated islands of Japan took only certain ideas from China and were able to keep their own identity. Old empires became new as with The Byzantine Empire which evolved from the Roman Empire retained the Greek language, and cultural in the “humanities (literature, philosophy, history) “(495) and became very powerful during its’ time until their defeat 1453 by “Turkic Ottoman Empire, then known as the ““sword of Islam”” (471). China reasserted its Confucian Traditions, India retained pattern of caste system.
This Era also finds itself among survival uncertainty as diseases also spread throughout these nations. Small pox, measles hit the Roman Empire and Han Dynasty the hard, but “Black Death” was the epidemic that took “half of the population of Europe” (324) since peoples did not have the right immunities for certain diseases. Lives were also lost during peoples travel in the “Silk Roads” to thieves, in the unsustainable vessels at Sea and in the wretched conditions of the “Sand Roads”, nevertheless civilizations survived the continued to grow.

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